


A Fool's Choice

by temporalDecay



Series: distrait shorts [15]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:57:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1723838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/pseuds/temporalDecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dualscar makes his own choices, foolish as they might be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fool's Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashkatom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkatom/gifts).



“You could always come with me.” 

Garfit looks a tad ridiculous, sitting on the edge of your desk, legs folded primly as he leans over to snoop over your papers right under your nose. The robe, you think, is more for show than for anything else, sheer fabric sliding artistically off one shoulder, because it’s never too damn early for Garfit to fuck around with you. You do feel a pang of irritation, that he doesn’t word the question properly, more so because he won’t look at you in the eye. 

“I’m an Orphaner, Imoogi,” you growl in the back of your throat, eyes narrowed in mild contempt, because you becoming an Orphaner is the whole reason… well, that the last ten sweeps happened at all. 

“And Lord Taniwa is dead,” he retorts, not quite hiding his face behind his hair, as if that means anything to you. 

You reach a hand to yank him into your lap, and he goes, docile, just the barest hint of static to show he’s helping along, as he spills into your arms a lot more gracefully than you’d have liked. 

“Of course Lord Taniwa is dead,” you hiss against his throat, helping him settle with a knee on each side of your hips, hands sliding under the silk, “I served the wine that night.” 

You served the wine and stayed and watched, and you will never forget the look of muted betrayal as the old Lord put the pieces together and realized why he was dying. You didn’t reach out and help him as he collapsed, because Garfit told you not to touch anything, but you were surprised by the urge. You never realized you gave a damn about Taniwa Imoogi, until the very end, but even then, it wasn’t enough to make you change your mind, or regret what you’d done. 

You stood there and watched your mentor and owner die, and then you went back to find Garfit, and after you told him the bare facts, you fucked him up against a wall and swore allegiance to your new Lord. Tonight, like that night, he’s soft and malleable between your hands, and when your bulge slides by degrees into his nook, he whimpers in the back of his throat like a tender, delicate thing. You lean in and find your sign engraved in his skin and sink your teeth on it, sharp and swift, because he is not tender or delicate or docile at all. He’s the worst monster in the court and the most dangerous because no one believes him so. 

“I am an _Orphaner_ , Imoogi,” you say, digging your claws into his thighs as he rolls his hips in a lazy, taunting pace, “there ain’t nothing for me up in space.” 

“There’s me,” he mutters, petulant, looking sideways in a poor imitation of coy. 

You snarl and shove him into the ground, and he whines in tune with the creak and sway of your ship, as you fall on him with a vengeance, wrists in your hands and mouth lost in yours. He’s pliant and soft and everything you know he’s not, beneath you, writhing like a cheap whore when you fuck him with just a tad more caliginous feeling than you probably should. Then again, he’s more your moirail and your keeper than your matesprit, and you still suck his bulge and fill him up like you were hatched for it, so what do you care about proper boundaries in quadrants, when you’re fucking him because you’re angry and know better than to try and fight him. 

“I’m an Orphaner, _Lord_ Imoogi,” you hiss into his neck, resisting the urge to sink your teeth into the gills there and watch him bleed out under you, “not a fucking _pet_.” 

“I don’t know,” he laughs, claws carding through your hair like you’re not bearing down your weight on him with a hint of a threat, which you suppose for someone with the ability to fling you into a wall at a glance, it might not be. It bites at your pride, regardless, and you find yourself snarling into his smile, “you’re pretty good at obeying orders.” 

You don’t stop until the carpet’s ruined, and then you take off the moment he steps out of the ship, ostensibly to go on a hunt, in reality because you _are_ good at taking orders, and you don’t know how to say goodbye without somehow abandoning your post and joining his entourage. 

He leaves you a letter you never read, because you know you might just budge if you do, and a poignant scar in your arm, to remind you to whom you do truly belong. 

It’s for the best, you tell yourself, regardless, space sounds dreadfully boring and you’ve got an important duty to take pride on. 

It’s for the best, you tell yourself, and almost sound convincing when you say you have no regrets. 

  


* * *

  


Hidden in the shadows, you watch the gamblinant snoop around your desk for secrets she might sell. You let her rummage about, amused at the fact she hasn’t noticed you at all, until you realize her hands have found an old, still-sealed letter beneath the important secrets scattered about your paperwork. 

“How rude of me,” you say, hands closing in on her wrists and using your size to shove her against the desk, until she’s dropped the letter among the rest, “to not welcome you sooner, Milady, I don’t have guests all that often.” 

She shakes her head, tossing her hair and trying to gore you with that fish hook of a horn of hers, sneering despite the tight grip you have on her wrists. 

“I’m no one’s lady, Orphaner,” she hisses, arrogance dripping down her tone despite her current disadvantage, “certainly not yours. Do you even know who I am?” 

Matter of fact, you do. You’re being paid quite a handsome sum to try and keep her off the western shores. Still, you’re mildly amused by the way she looks at you, the arrogance you were warned of, and the sly genius she supposedly commands. You’re not, on the whole, terribly impressed. 

“Should I?” You taunt, and endure the knife to the gut with a dispassionate sort of grace, arching your body so it goes cleanly into muscle and far away from things you actually need, like organs and such. You think of Taniwa and his lessons, but the thought is as old as your habit to ignore it and the tinge of regret that comes with it, so all that comes to the surface is an annoyed grimace. Still, as she’s no longer clutching the letter, you let her go, as if the hit had hurt more than it really did. “Does it make any difference?” 

“I’m the Marquise Spinneret Mindfang,” she brags, leaning back on the desk like it’s hers to sprawl on, “you should remember that name.” 

You sneer. 

“When you give me a reason to,” you taunt, lips pulling into a smirk when her expression turns feral, “sure.” 

She aims for your face with a knife already dripping with your blood, but you’re good at close quarters fights, if nothing else. You step back and deprive her of another hit, then surge forward to hold her wrists again, until her shoulders are raised and tilted forward, arms straight and tense, and you’re almost raising her off the floor from that grip. 

You’re tempted to snap her neck, right here and now, but for some reason you don’t feel inclined to. 

“I know who you are, Aranea Serket,” you hiss, delighting in the way her expression shifts from taunting to suspicious. “I know you like to _run_.” You feel the touch of her powers in your pan like white hot claws dipped in acid. Thoughts scatter about as you feel her scramble your mind with vicious glee. Still, you hold onto her for a moment longer. “So run along, now, _Marquise_ ,” you drawl, as you shove her off your person, nearly sending her sprawling back onto the desk. “I wouldn’t want to ruin your record, _deserter_.” 

“You don’t know anything, _Orphaner_ ,” she hisses back, and swipes at your pan one last time, before turning around and purposely strolling out of the block. 

The migraine, you decide, is entirely worth the snide letter you begin to pen, as soon as she’s gone. 

  


* * *

  


Garfit’s reply is six perigees late and far too short to compensate the lateness: 

_Kill her._

It’s not an order, per se, but it feels like one, and you remember his anger when Aranea Serket slipped through his fingers and vanished from Court to become a fearsome gamblinant. Garfit never did enjoy getting outwitted, and you get the feeling he wants to redeem himself of that failure, through you. 

You burn the letter, instead, remembering the echo of old words – _you’re pretty good at obeying orders_ – and remind yourself you answer to no one but your duty to the Empress. You are tasked with pacifying the seas, but nowhere in there does it say you have to kill to accomplish it. 

“If I didn’t know any better,” Mindfang drawls one night, leaning on a wall and trying to loom threateningly, “I’d say you’re courting me, Orphaner.” 

After all, peace is peace, no matter how it’s bought. 

“I wouldn’t say that,” you reply, not looking at her as you pen an equally short and hopefully late letter, “it’s uncouth to court _whores_.” 

Two nights later, your slaves begin to die, and you’re struck by the stubborn thought that if you’d followed Garfit along like a good pet would’ve, you wouldn’t be having this much fun. 

_Can’t kill my own kismesis, now, can I?_

  


* * *

  


Mindfang fucks you with the vicious air of someone trying to conquer you. Her hatred burns bright and hot, leaving scores of claws down your skin. You let her shove you onto the floor of your cabin, shoving her mouth into yours fangs first, just as she shoves her bulge into your nook, full of violence and frustration, and you relish in being docile beneath her, in retaliating by not fighting back. Denying her the struggle makes her all the more vicious, and you find a nameless sort of satisfaction in not giving in. You’re inured to pain, by now; nothing she can think of you haven’t gone through at the hands of either Taniwa or Garfit, no new way of bleeding out and rubbing salt in the wounds that would make you crumble at her feet like she so desperately wants to. 

Garfit hasn’t forgiven you this, and you still refuse to ask forgiveness, so instead you retaliate with kindness that Mindfang finds as incomprehensible as your devotion to the Empress. 

She’s a vile, fickle thing, self-centered and self-possessed, but above all, absolutely certain she is owner of herself. You hate her beyond words, resentful of her freedom and her willingness to _be_ free, because she’s never worn a collar and felt the strong tug of loyalty to anyone but herself. She’s everything you wish you could be, but will never bring yourself to be, and instead of trying to destroy her, to make her submit the way she tries to do with you when she’s got the upper hand, you take a page from the book of your betters and give her kindness, instead. You know the frustration and the anger of having gentle hands touching your skin, as if dismissing you as a threat, as if anything you do couldn’t be considered more than an amusement. You take it out on her the only way you know how, with knowing sneers and a hint of cynical amusement you remember vividly from your younger days, and you know it works, because your slaves keep dying every now and then, and she keeps interrupting your hunts, and this is the closest to content you’ve been with your bitterness, since the Empress took the better half of her court with her into space. 

“I’m not your _matesprit_ , Dualscar,” she snarls into your neck, dangerously close to your gills, and it takes all you have to not flinch away, instead combing her hair with your claws. “I’m not your Empress.” 

Aranea Serket has never stood audience with the Empress. Neither have you, but you’ve seen others do it. You’ve been in the same block as Her Imperious Condescension. You’ve seen the glimmer of murderous glory in her eyes, the imprudent dignity in her face. Aranea Serket doesn’t understand your loyalty, because she’s a base, lesser creature who will never know what true devotion means. She mocks you, every now and then, trying to diminish your faith as lust or something puerile, because she didn’t grow up in the shadow of the Empress’ name, the ghost of her past glories and the unflinching, unquestioning servitude you did. Above all, you let her, because she believes she’s right, and so long as she does, she’ll not dwell too deep into things you’d rather she didn’t know. She’s rude and lewd and callous and willful, but there’s a morbid simplicity to her that you hate comfortably, because the world begins and ends with her, as far as she’s concerned, and one of the best skills you’ve earned, in this ridiculous relationship you have, is to convince her something crucial is not worth her time. 

“Of course you’re not,” you say, dutifully tilting your head away to dodge getting gored with a horn, as you slide your hand down her shoulder and her arm, to rest comfortably against her waist and the swell of her puffed up skirt. “The Empress doesn’t steal, she _conquers_.” 

You smile at her, when she snarls in outrage, when she shoves you onto the floor, when she fucks you like she’s screaming – I conquered _you_ , didn’t I? – and then you laugh when she leaves, the papers she meant to steal still on the desk and the smug, pleasant echo of her bulge still pulsing between your legs. 

  


* * *

  


Aranea Serket believes what she wants to believe. That the scars on your forearm are just a coincidence, rather than a sign of ownership. That your devotion for your Empress is something crude and vulgar like mere lust, rather than the all-consuming reason for living you learned from Lord Imoogi. That she’s your priority in the seas, rather than a distraction from the title you still cling to like a vine. That the scars on your face were just an accident, rather than cold-blooded discipline. 

That you will not sell her out, when she crosses that one line, rather than taking responsibility for your own mistakes. 

“You up and be wasting my time, bitch,” the Grand Highblood hisses, looming from his throne, and you keep your head bowed because you remember Taniwa’s voice, centuries making the memory less bitter, warning you of the danger of a _quiet_ Subjugglator. 

You’re not Aranea Serket. 

“The jadeblood is dead, My Lord.” 

You have nothing to fear. 


End file.
